new plan is in response to the recent votes in colorado and washington. i find that hard to believe think they using taxpayer dollars to pay for the program is okay. you're in college, if you want to study pot smoking, walk around student housing. that's my two cents more. that's all for tonight's "willis report," thanks for joining us, have a great night. ♪ lou: we're now 34 days from slipping over the so-called fiscal cliff, and i have no sign of progress to report to you on the talks between president obama and the republican leaders trying to reach a deal to avoid the crisis. the number two man, durbin of illinois tad saying nothing should be left off the table in search of budget cuts, and new sources of revenue, the assistant majority leader allowing the changes in the

president's signature legislative achievement should be on the table. that's right, obamacare. >> put everything on the table. repeat, put everything on the tail, not just taxes and revenue, but spending cuts and entitlement reform. the only perfect law i know was carried down a mountain by senator moses. lou: what should be positive words for republicans tempered by the fact that senator durbin has no standing as the president's representative in the negotiation, and harry reid is telling a far different stories. john boehner and his caucus, the target, again, of senator reid's blame game. the senate majority leader insistent that republicans are the only onee in the way of the deal. reid asked point blank what the first thing would be, and he offered this curious answer.

>> well, remember, we've already done more than a billion dollars worth of cuts. we've already done that. we need to get some credit for that and the negotiations that take place. lou: meanwhile, according to the white house, everything is not on the table, the table that a president is not scheduled to be seated at. carney confirmed that president obama will not find any extension of the bush tax cuts for the top 2% of the earners in the nation, and a look at the president's schedule for the remainder of this week shows nothing in the way of negotiations on it. the president reverting back to campaign mode as the white house decided to lobby for public support of his fiscal cliff policy positions rather than negotiate a compromise. president obama believing he won a mandate with 51% of the popular vote in last month's election. sitting down today with small

business leaders at the white house meaning tomorrow with the ceos of larger firms and middle class taxpayers, and then a true campaign-style rally held in a toy factory on the outskirts of philadelphia friday where the president continues his christmas themed attacks against republicans and their positions. a meeting to hash out a deal with congressional leaders not on the president's schedule as of this moment. we'll take all of this up here tonight, and republicans taking action to resolve at least part of the illegal immigration dilemma, a strong moderate alternative to the democrats' dream act proposed, a dramatic republican pivot on the issue led by two outcoining republican senators who, today, introduced the achieve act. senator hitchenson of texas works on the legislation for almost a year, among our guests here tonight, and the republican party, some say it's in disarray after the presidential defeat. what's next for the party? we examine the -- what we call

republican reset. what will it look like? rnc communications directer joining us along with weekly standard senior writer steven hays. hurricaning -- turning now to ben gay city, -- benghazi, a group doing nothing to soften her response to the september 11th attack. >> we are significantly troubled by many of the answers we got and some that we didn't get. >> i'm more troubled today knowing, having met with the acting directer of the cia and ambassador rice -- >> bottom line, more disturbedded now than before. lou: in a statement following that meeting with the republican senators and acting cia director michael morale, ambassador rice said this, "we explained the talking appointments provided by the intelligence community and the initial assessment upon

which they were based were incorrect in a key respect. there was no protest or demonstration in benghazi. neither i nor anyone else in the administration intended to mislead the american people at any stage in this process." now even greater confusion on the issue of changed rice's talking points. the most recent explanation and revision comes from cia sitting director who told senators the fbi removed references of al-qaeda from the talking points, but at four o'clock eastern time today, cia officials said morale misspoke and that, in fact, the cia deleted references, not the fbi. stay tuned, as they say. joining us now, former u.s. ambassador not united nations, john bolten, andrew mccarthy, former federal prosecutor who

convicted the blind shake, and the author of "spring fever." great to have you both here. andrew, your reaction to what is playing out in the nation's capital. this is the nation's capital -- capital of a superpower; right? >> so they say. a lot of misspeaking going on, it would appear. you know, look, it's been obvious from the start here that they tried to play out the idea of this video nobody saw of this being the cause of the atrocity of what happened in benghazi in which four, including our ambassador, were killed. it's important to get to the bottom of it, and getting to the bottom of it, a comedy of error, should not obscure the fact this is a major advocation by the commander in chief who did not take action in a seven and a half hour siege with assets in place he could have used to

protect americans, and we have this inexplicable result of americans being killed, precisely because of the way the president handled it. lou: ambassador, this is quite a play that's being produced right now in washington, d.c.. senators grahm, mccain sitting there being -- not summoned, too strong a word, but urgently requested to meet with ambassador rice and to what end when we have the responses we've just shown you from three senators saying they have more questions now than going in? >> well, this meeting was obviously a disaster. if it was intended to bring them closer together, to facilitate her nomination for secretary of state, it was a real failure. when you have senators coming out unmistakenbly things are worse now than before the meeting, that's not a good sign. what obama does for the nomination, i don't kkow, but,

clearly, what we have is an administration who can't get the story straight. i think as long as that's out there, this is going to be a very troubled period for susan rice and her perspective nomination. lou: the idea is that any president as a matter of tradition has the right to his choice to fill whatever office is at issue. in this case, the secretary of state. this kind of dissension and contradiction and contest between the two parties over ambassador rice really creates a different dynamic. do you think? >> well, it creates a different dynamic, i think, on two levels. number one, the appointment of the secretary of state is an extremely important thing for the country, but in this instance, again, it can want be used as a side show that obscures a much more important thing that we have to get to the bottom of here which is why

didn't commander in chief take action he should have taken to protects americans? as far as susan rice is concerned, she is actually in a position now saying give me a promotion, more responsibilities in government on the basis of how i performed up to this point and what her most notorious performance is to go out and carry this story to the american people about what happened in the atrocity. >> well, there is another issue here, and it's a matter of equity which the democrats are addressing in a different form so let me bring to it an independent perspective, and that is, as much -- as ambassador rice has become a lightning rod, the failures on the part of david petraeus, for all i know, michael morale, the director of national intelligence, james clapper. the list goes on and on, and nearly three months after ben

benghazi, we don't know who is responsible, who made what decisions, and who is truly responsible beyond the president himself, and foremost, for what was an utter tragedy. where should the republicans be focusing beyond just ambassador rice and why to this point have they not? >> well, i think the point is clear. there were failures by the administration before the attack not providing additional security. what happened on the day of the attack? was everything done to protect people? there's also the story of what came after, and that goes directly to the administration's foreign policy, not just the talking points, but who decided about the narrative of the youtube video? lou: turning quickly to egypt. president morsi taking powers, that in any other country, would make him a dictator.

he's saying he will not be another dictator. the muslim brotherhood following the strict you laid out in your book, "spring fever." >> it's worth underscoring here in muslim brotherhood circles, morsi is a hard liner, not a guy they put out there as ad -- as a moderate. in their circles, he's used closely to the discipline and structure and ideology of the brotherhood so no one who has watched in over the years should be surprised by what he's done. lou: gentlemen, thank you very much. great to have you both here. appreciate it. >> thank you. lou: ambassador rice, the agenda of egypt's morsi, later taking that up with the a-team. the obama white house talking mandate, but what about all those governors and state legislatures? how well did the president really do in this campaign?

after tonight's "chalk talk," you tell us if it's a mandate. after president obama defeated governor romney in the race for president, is the g.o.p. ready for change? after two consecutive presidential losses, is it time for republicans to reset? steven hayes and shawn spicer join us here next. twins. i didn't see them coming. i have obligations. cute obligations, but obligatio. i need to rethink the core of my portfolio. what i really need is sleep. introducing the ishares core, building blocks for the heart of your portfolio. find out why 9 out of 10 large professional investors choose ishares for their etfs.

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lou: the target of bipartisan anger, but is his tax pledge really the problem in washington, d.c.? the weekly standard and rnc communications directer will join us to discuss the possibilities of a republican reset here in just moments, but, first, in the money line, wall street showing its disappointment in washington and

progress, and overshadowing news of terrific developments rising 3% over the past 12 months, and the nasdaq has been, well, working to extend its six day winning streak until senator reid started talking. the dow down 89 points, s&p down 7, and nasdaq down 9. a 10% pickup from yesterday's performance, and turning now to dick durbin's statement that everything should be on the table. durbin seems ready to deal, but he seems to be somewhat lopely -- lonely position. reid, his boss, and republicans stumbling around trying to distinguish between raising revenue, tax rates, and how much the federal government should spend. does the republican party have a message that anyone can

understand here or that resinates? joining us now, senior writer for the weekly standard, and the republican national committee communications direct. great to have you both here. going first to the negotiations, both sides acknowledging they are not making any progress. where are we to look for leadership down there? >> you know, lou, it's a great question. i think the speaker, after the election, came out the next day and said we're willing to talk about adding additional revenue if the goal here is to try to put more money on the table. there's ways, closing loopholes, growing the economy that we can do that. let's face it. it's a revenue problem. by definition, a deficit exists because you spend too much, and the president who is the leader of the country, you know, claims that the problem can all be solved by adding more revenue, which seems to me, a fundamental problem because you can keep

adding money to the problem, but if the growth grows at such an exponential rate, you don't stop it. nevermind the deficit, you'll never come close to tackling the debt if there's not leadership from the white house on this issue. >> reporter: steven, you covered the issues, and you have for a very long time with distinction. at some point, it seems we're on a carosel of complaints and empirical evidence that does not change and the argument does not change. that is, we have a trillion dollar problem in terms of the deficit, a $16 trillion problem in terms of the debt, and we've got two parties that for all the world are acting as though we think we got 300 million americans in the country too dumb to understand what they've got to do. the only people who don't seem to get it are the republicans and the democrats in the nation's capital. >> yeah, i mean, look, there's a lot of truth to that. republicans deserve credit in raising issues after the elections of 2010, as part of

the process, the negotiations about the debt ceiling, but the irony we're facing right now as we sit here and we see the president refuse to talk seriously about entitlements, refuse to really actually engauge in any serious negotiations, he's doing a campaign stop, his right, he's the president, he can do that, but where are the real negotiations, the discussion about what entitlement reforms he's willing to embrace? everybody knows entitlements drive our debt. that's the problem. it's entitleeents, period. where's the discussion how to reform them in a serious way so that we can eventually talk seriously about bringing the budget back in balance? the president has not led those. he started his first term by pledging to make entitlement reforms the center of the deficit reduction pla he's done nothing about it in nearly four years. lou: yeah. let me turn to the issue of the possibility of a republican reset, if i may, very quickly.

the party, some say outright in disarray in defeat of the candidate, president obama's hands, and there's great hand wringing, gnashing of teeth, and wailing on the part of the republican party. the leadership seems to reside with speaker boehner and rinse -- reince, chairman of the rnc, who led the party to another defeat, second in the row, over the course of the past two cycles. at what point do republicans acknowledge there's a problem, we have to do things differently, find out what the message is, and find someone willing to listen to the message that will grow the party. >> well, i think, look, i think we've haddtremendous successes. in 2010, we took back the house, grew the majority in the house, took seats in the senate, a lot of seats in governorship, governor walker, scott, and so

the party had a tremendous amount of successes over the last four years. is it a big disappointment we didn't take the presidency? absolutely. we need to do a serious autopsy of what happened on november 6, what worked, and what didn't. lou: let me help with the communications, autopsy has a certain connotation that they probably don't want to attach to the republican party. >> thank you, you're helping us already, lou. see, that's the feedback we need. lou: we need more of your candor when it comes to what is happening with parties of the country. >> right. >> lou, you know that i'm not a knee jerk defender of establishment republicans by any stretch. i have to say that preibus did a pretty darn good job. if you look what he was handed as rnc chairman and what he did in terms of turning around

fundraising, raising the profile in the rnc for the message, and in terms of enabling and empowering, precisely, the bold reform conservatives that i think we need to turn the country around he did that. he was making argumenting on behalf of paul ryan, pushing for scott walker, doing these things that are the kinds of things republicans need to do to draw the contrast with the president in the white house. lou: if i understand correctly, the status quo election will be a complete victory for both parties; is that correct? >> no, not at all. lou: just kidding. >> i know, i know. i think mitt romney was a good man, immediate i don't career -- mediocre candidate with a bad cam payment. you can't lay that on the rnc. lou: i've never seen an instance where the republican national committee was held responsible for a campaign, ever. great to see you both. the hair looks great there. >> thank you.

lou: i understand it's the result -- >> oh, wow. >> i permly learned the -- personally learned the consequences of losing, lou. i lost the bet. lou: also the consequences that lead to doing good for a charity. thank you. >> thank you. lou: war producing heros and tragedies, too many to count, outpost in afghanistan, and detailed accurately by jake tapper in the new book "the outpost," ed henry gave me permission to talk with him tonight. the american dream may be closer for millions of illegal immigrantings. republicans moving forward with lame duck legislation that will change their world. the achieve act and senator hutchenson next. those surprising little things she does

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>> this friday when the heads to a toy factory pushed further tax hikes on those top earners, the wealthy. the last we heard from the president was after the election and give a news conference saying a majority of us agree with this approach him. in other words, a mandate to raise taxes hutton. tonight we want to take that mandate and put it into some context and perspective. this is the president's 2012 victory. but 50 -- and this is the mandate. forty-seven. the electoral votes, 3302.

mesa more room here. romney's 206. that's impressive. but there's something missing. seven and a half people. seven and a half million voters from 2008. he received and, and all right this over here, 53 percent of the vote to mccain's 46%. a little more impressive. 365 electoral votes to 1703. wait a minute. that's quite a little difference . of falloff in the popular vote and a far less impressive electoral victory this year. let's look at the legislative branch, the senate, the house. fifty-five for democratic senators. forty-five will be republican.

200 democratic representatives to 234 in the house of representatives. he is down here. pretty impressive for the republicans. by the way, when you combine the senate and house there are still a lot more republicans than capitol hill then there are democrats. the president in the logical mandates seem sets dissipate when you start looking at that and the state governments where there are and will be 30 republican governors. nineteen democrats and one independent. controlled by republicans. nineteen will be controlled by democrats. nineteen of them. and the or we will have split

control. some nebraska's legislature is non-partisan and easy to work through. here's another interest in the breakdown. twenty-three of the state's will have republican control the legislature and the governorship and control of both houses of the legislature, 14 states, 14 states will be democratic and having both democratic governors and democratic legislatures, but control of both houses. if you believe in mandates, it's a little complicated. %-republicans who seem to be receiving a -- maybe we should stop and ask yourselves as we look at the broad canvas of the country in the political power, state and federal the much as

two -- republicans and democrats to set to take their arguments on the road. what they think that will help? the "a-team" is here. in october 200-9400 taliban fighters attacked an american outpost with just 53 troops. eight of our troops lost their lives at stake. one author wanted answers on why our troops were left on prepared and unprotected. he joins me next to talk about his new book, the outpost. from 17 billion chips worldwide to a world of super-connected intelligence. the potential of freescale unlocked. nyse euronext. unlocking the world's potential. to investing with knowledge. the potential of td ameritrade unlocked.

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♪ lou: a group of republican senators today introducing new immigration legislatton called the achieve act, sponsored by senators kay bailey hutchison and senator john kyl. it would offer the opportunity of permanent residency for illegal immigrants who are in

the country because of their parents. the pathway to residency would be open to those illegal immigrants seeking higher education or serving in the u.s. military. unlike the. >> translator, it does not offer a pathway to citizenship. joining us now from washington d.c., one of the sponsors and authors of this bill, senator kay bailey hutchison. great to have you with us. he resolutions on the bill. at this point it is terrific that you have come forward with this legislation. and you have been working on for some time. why now? >> well, as you know, because i talked to you earlier this year, we have been working on a long time, and it has taken a long time to talk to all the different groups that have an interest in to try to get the right balance. we feel we have the right balance. we feel it is time to go forward in a positive way with a program , an alternative that we think is the right way to go. a loves these young people to

get an education or serve in the military and have the ability to stay here legally. it does not put them in front of people who have already been here, abiding by the law, waiting their turn, but it does not prohibit them from getting in line. they can be here working legally while they are either applying for citizenship or a green card or maybe they don't want to, and many of them don't. they have those options. lou: going through your legislation and looking at a number of the elements, i can almost hear every. [indiscernible] screaming because he does allow for those under this act applying for welfare. roses put it that way. you think that's going to be one of the toughest elements in winning support? >> well, i think it's a balanced approach. i think that when we are trying

to make a way forward for these young people who are in a kind of never, never land. they only know america as their homes. educated in america, and that they can legally work. we're trying to fix that particular problem. trying not to put them in front of online where people have waited for years get their green card or citizenship. we don't want to change the law as it is, but we thought it was important to take that very narrow group of people and try to fix a problem that is really very time sensitive. we wanted to be as clean as we come up one. lou: is this, in your view, a direct response to the performance of the republican party in the november 6 the election with a hispanic and latino voter population in this country. >> well, i doubt we would win in november and have been working on this for your. i thought it was the right thing

to do. i have always received hispanic votes in texas, 44 percent in my last selection. i thought it was the right thing to do. i have been talking to my advisory group of hispanic americans in texas actually for for years about what we cculd do that would take these young people out of the conundrum. they want to work, but yet they cannot get a job. their employers cannot hire them because they don't have the legality. i worked on a long time, and i think that now is the time command that think that now is a realization by a lot of people that maybe is not thought about before that we need to move forward, hopefully in a bipartisan way and come to a balance with making sure of that we give them away, but also not putting them in front of people

who have paid their dues and of the right thing. lou: senator, want to congratulate you and senator kyle for bringing forward -- >> and senator mccain is a co-sponsor. lou: and senator mccain certainly. this is a moderate reason and humane approach that makes all the sense in the world, with the suspects will make it typical -- often difficult to pass. all the best of luck. >> face for having me. appreciate it. lou: up next, abc news, new book exposing reasons behind a dark day for our forces in afghanistan. coming up tomorrow, americans for tax reform president grover norquist. reno about a lot, but a growing list of republicans in going after him. they want to raise taxes. we will talk with them about

that. the markets, the economy. pulitzer prize-winning journalist among our guests. we will be right back.

who went. lou: on the morning of march over third 2009 troops stationed in a combat outpost located at the bottom of three steep mountains in afghanistan were attacked by 400 insurgents one. my next guest takes a look what happened and her rogue actions of our soldiers. an untold story of american power. >> is nice to see you in. lou: i want to believe, as a white house correspondent for

the last thing people five policy will be bringing a story from afghanistan. >> i was reporting from the comfort of the north lawn, the physis and the pentagon and a warehouse and it troops surged numbers. in new one and was about more of them while was reporting on. lou: your focus on this particular panel who, he targe of more than 225 individuals when. >> i work done for two and a half years in new will learn.

it was a big project. every time i thought i was done, no, he need to talk to this guy. alternately and just said the stock because there will never be a time when i talked to everybody. lou: you were pursuing one of the toughest explanations of how those tend to be, and he the target. and it would been detected low will. >> pile was enough to hospital with my newborn son we want. of a corner of my eye and saw the story about the attack this coverage was all along the lines of, why would anybody put an outpost there. the chemistry that i needed to solve it.

why would you put our troops in such a vulnerable position, but then it became partisan line to be so outnumbering. the stories suspect him remarkable. we cover the war among but we don't really cover the war. your show might be an exception. all eight of the men died because there were doing their job, to help a brother, provide him with ammunition, go on a rescue mission. returned fire. all eight of them doing something grievance of los. these stories to my tragic in one sense, but they became.

inspirational. these really are the best we have to offer and discreet that we have these fighting men and women and their families. lou: he did them great honor. the new york times best selling book. beam the governors and the talk. i deny you guys work together. >> were old friends. i did a weekly comic strip. ed was my answer the hon. this is in the late 90's, early 2000's. lou: now your at the white house competing for. >> with its fund. i've known him for her.

he was a great editor. he's a funny guy him. lou: he tells me he's the greatest white house correspondent. >> and sure he does. lou: all the best of luck. president obama taking his fiscal cliff proposals to the campaign trail. stay tuned. we will find out. the negotiating table is next. this family used capital one venture mes to come home for the holidays. that's double miles you can actually use... sadly, their brother's white christma just got "blacked out." [ brother ] but it's the family party! really jingles your bells, doesn't it?

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♪ lou: joining me now, the "a-team," former prosecutor, fox news legal analyst, former

clinton adviser, columnist, former rnc spokesperson me. gadhafi will hear. have to start with you. he said to figure out what's going on the republican party. it seems that a few other folks, as saying that a great job standing up for him. announcing anything. i'm just asking questions. is this a status quo position for the republican party. >> of the issues that we have on our side, i'm not sure we always get the message out. we may have some of the wrong messages. of an outlay that the seed of the rnc chairman. and maybe some things that need to be changed with the people have run the party because the

rank-and-file. look. think they need a little bit of new blood. we do very well out in the states. when the governor's race is. we win congressional races in the midterm and find some of this talent around the country and bring it to washington. lou: a status quo. no names. don't mess up to much. >> the republicans in have lost five of the last six presidential elections. they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. it will concern themselves as a secondary position. >> and started cut you off, but i want to just make sure i understand this.

coming up with republican dream at. >> i think so too. the electorate. get the great cats, how they will aspire. it makes sense. it's a good compromise bill. >> a step in the right direction. it could be saying, let's sit down and talk. lou: you get the last word. >> is something that they have to do. is that going to go way. it has to be a step in the right direction.@ lou: all right. thank you. let's say thanks and tell you,

that's it for us tonight. we thank you for being with us. be sure to be with us tomorrow right here. good night from new york. can i help you?

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